The 13 year old hydronic heating system in my house seemed to work fine unt il this winter. It used to warm up the house in 2~3 hours (say from 66 f to 70 f on not so cold days ). But I have noticed the temperature is not comi ng up fast enough this winter. The thermostat in the room is set at 61 f overnight and starts to call for heat at 7 AM for 68 f. So for the past f ew days at 7 AM, the thermostat reads 59 f and starts calling for heat. Th e boiler cycles on and off through out the day and at 12 PM, The thermostat reads around 60 f to 61 f. ONLY 1~2 degrees up for running 5 hours!!!! The system uses Honeywell Aquastat L4103D and L6006A. The dial points at 190 f on L4103D and its set at 140 f on L6006A with Diff 5 degrees. Is this the right setting? According to the gauge on the boiler, it is tuned on at 130 f and off at 190 f. It runs about minutes before shutting off and the next cycle comes on in about minutes. Is this right? Why is the house not warmi ng up like it used to be?
considerably longer and perhaps never achieved.
If it takes up to 2 hours to get from 66 to 70, the sizin g is marginal at best. My house can go from 62 to 7 0 in less than an hour.
There are three considerati ons. One is the size of the boiler itself. If it is cycling, it is probably adequate. The next thing is the amount of heating surface, radiators, baseboard, whatever. If you don't have enough, it cannot move the heat from the boiler into the room.
The next i s flow. Is the circulating pump working properly? Is the water moving the way it should be? Feel the pi pe and be sure it is hot all the way through the loo p. There will be some drop along the way as it give s off heat, but should not be dramatic. The circulator is the first thing I would check. They do go bad.
until this winter. It used to warm up the house in 2~3 hours (say from 66 f to 70 f on not so cold days ). But I have noticed the temperature is not coming up fast enough this winter. The thermostat in the room is set at 61 f overnight and starts to call for heat at 7 AM for 68 f. So for the pa st few days at 7 AM, the thermostat reads 59 f and starts calling for heat. The boiler cycles on and off through out the day and at 12 PM, The thermo stat reads around 60 f to 61 f. ONLY 1~2 degrees up for running 5 hours!!!! The system uses Honeywell Aquastat L4103D and L6006A. The dial points at 1 90 f on L4103D and its set at 140 f on L6006A with Diff 5 degrees. Is this the right setting? According to the gauge on the boiler, it is tuned on at 130 f and off at 190 f. It runs about minutes before shutting off and the next cycle comes on in about minutes. Is this right? Why is the house not w arming up like it used to be?
It's between 17 f and 27 f in the daytime and 5 f overnight. I am a newbie here. I don't know if I got this right but I think the size of the boiler and the heating surface should be fine because I remembered standing on hot tiles in the kitchen when the thermostat was calling for heat,last winter and the house was warm.. As for the circulating pump, it was hot when I fe lt it so I think its working properly? The pipes are like "ouchy" hot whe n I felt them but when I was standing on the kitchen tiles, the surface onl y felt lukewarm. It used to be very warm before.
The 13 year old hydronic heating system in my house seemed to work fine until this winter. It used to warm up the house in 2~3 hours (say from 66 f to 70 f on not so cold days ). But I have noticed the temperature is not coming up fast enough this winter. The thermostat in the room is set at 61 f overnight and starts to call for heat at 7 AM for 68 f. So for the past few days at 7 AM, the thermostat reads 59 f and starts calling for heat. The boiler cycles on and off through out the day and at 12 PM, The thermostat reads around 60 f to 61 f. ONLY 1~2 degrees up for running 5 hours!!!! The system uses Honeywell Aquastat L4103D and L6006A. The dial points at 190 f on L4103D and its set at 140 f on L6006A with Diff 5 degrees. Is this the right setting? According to the gauge on the boiler, it is tuned on at 130 f and off at 190 f. It runs about minutes before shutting off and the next cycle comes on in about minutes. Is this right? Why is the house not warming up like it used to be?
It may or may not be the circulator. Find a dial gauge on the the boiler called a tridicator. It shows boiler temperature and pressure. The temp should be around 180° and pressure around 13 depending on building height . Find the expansion tank and feel the top and bottom of it and know on it to determine the water level. The tank may be waterlogged, if it is hot on bot h the top and bottom. Look on your search engine to find out the term and how the system works. Do you have a service plan from your oil supplier for an annual tune up? Please post back when and how your issue is resolved.
ntil this winter. It used to warm up the house in 2~3 hours (say from 66 f to 70 f on not so cold days ). But I have noticed the temperature is not co ming up fast enough this winter. The thermostat in the room is set at 61 f overnight and starts to call for heat at 7 AM for 68 f. So for the past few days at 7 AM, the thermostat reads 59 f and starts calling for heat. The boiler cycles on and off through out the day and at 12 PM, The thermost at reads around 60 f to 61 f. ONLY 1~2 degrees up for running 5 hours!!!! T he system uses Honeywell Aquastat L4103D and L6006A. The dial points at 190 f on L4103D and its set at 140 f on L6006A with Diff 5 degrees. Is this th e right setting? According to the gauge on the boiler, it is tuned on at 13 0 f and off at 190 f. It runs about minutes before shutting off and the ne xt cycle comes on in about minutes. Is this right? Why is the house not war ming up like it used to be?
Of course it's not right. I'd say it was not right from the beginning, if it takes 2 to 3 hours to raise the temperature from 66 to 70. That is unless it's 0F outside. I wouldn't put up with that. I have forced air, I can do ~5 deg in an hour.
If the boiler is hot, next question would seem to be is the circulating pum p running? Is it filled with water? Is the thermostat constantly calling for heat?
The radiators or the heating surface (not sure what it's called) are not ho t, only lukewarm.I googled before I asked for help here and I was thinking it might be the air in the system, but as I am still learning about the who le heating system, I wanted to make sure all the temperature settings are a ppropriate. Are they?
Just because the pump feels hot does not mean it is running. The hot water will make it feel hot even if it is not running. The water pipes should feel uniformly warm. If they are much warmer near the boiler and cooler away from it, you may have a circulation problem. Is your system one zone, just one circulator. You may want to invest in a low cost point and shoot Thermometer from eBay.
Yes, sounds like a circulation problem. Either low on water or the pump is not working. It will feel hot but you should hear it actually turning and moving the water.
Your terminology was a bit vague. Are you using a recirculating hot water system which pumps heated water into baseboard heaters?
a: if it's older than 20 or so years (in other words, "dumb"), then yes, the piping should feel hot.
b: if it's newer and "smart", it will be designed to (in loose terms) throttle up or down depending on how much heat it thinks is needed.
In the old days, if the outdoor temperature was (numbers made up) 50 degrees and you wanted 70, the boiler might only come on, at _full_ strentgh, for five minutes out of a half hour. But when it was on, the radiators would be hot.
If it was zero outside, the sytem might be on for 25 minutes out of each half hour.
Nowadays, there are units that will cut back on their output, based on the outdoor temperature and other factors.
So taking that 50 degree outside temperature, instead of the boiler running at full capacity for five minutes/30, it will cut down to 10 percent output for 25 mins/30.
The advantages here are better efficiency and less thermal shift in the house.
HOWEVER, that calculation is based on some magical calculations based on what the different thermo-sensors are reporting.
So... if you have a newer/smarter unit, there are plenty of other things that could be going wrong.
As the folk in alt.hvac (back when Usenet was a thing) used to say, probably a good idea to have a licensed and experienced technician take a look.
The pump should be running because it's hot and water in the pipes feel h ot too. The thermostat is constantly calling for heat.
ne until this winter. It used to warm up the house in 2~3 hours (say from 6 6 f to 70 f on not so cold days ). But I have noticed the temperature is no t coming up fast enough this winter. The thermostat in the room is set at 61 f overnight and starts to call for heat at 7 AM for 68 f. So for the past few days at 7 AM, the thermostat reads 59 f and starts calling for hea t. The boiler cycles on and off through out the day and at 12 PM, The ther mostat reads around 60 f to 61 f. ONLY 1~2 degrees up for running 5 hours!! !! The system uses Honeywell Aquastat L4103D and L6006A. The dial points at 190 f on L4103D and its set at 140 f on L6006A with Diff 5 degrees. Is thi s the right setting? According to the gauge on the boiler, it is tuned on a t 130 f and off at 190 f. It runs about minutes before shutting off and th e next cycle comes on in about minutes. Is this right? Why is the house not warming up like it used to be?
hot too. The thermostat is constantly calling for heat.
Water in the pipes where feels hot? A foot from the circulating pump or 20 feet away, at the farthest point, etc? Could be low on water. Did you try bleeding air at the radiators? Like the other poster said, the pump is near the boiler and will be hot regardless of whether water is moving much or not. Any chance someone shut off the water feed to the boiler?
Do I need a CH pump with a new combi boiler?
It's a stupid central heating question!
Honeywell central heating programmer question re "optimisation"